Enemy (2013)

Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered. José Saramago  

Enemy (Denis Villeneuve, 2013) is a Canadian-Spanish production loosely based on Jose Saramago's The Double, with screenplay by Javier Gullón. In a way, this is an intriguing encounter beetween the universes of the late portuguese writer (philosophical, intellectually on point, somewhat morose) and that of David Lynch (fantastic, dreamlike, highly symbolic). In Villeneuve's movie we are introduced to a College history teacher (Jake Gyllenhaal) by the name of Adam Bell, who leads a life apparently devoid of all excitement, a guy who seems totally focused on his academic discipline and who, as he himself claims "is not interested in movies" and probably, the viewer guesses, not into any other form of entertainment either. He just teaches history at College and makes love to his fiancée Mary (Mélanie Laurent), that's all.

 Doppelgänger

But one day he comes across something really weird, something that will turn his monotone life upside down. On one ocasion a colleague suggests he take a look at one particular movie that he might find of interest which comes under the title of Where There's a Will There's a Way. Without much excitement, Adam rents a DVD of the movie and makes a pretty scary discovery: in the movie playing a very small role, there is an actor who is physically identical to him. Yes, a double, a doppelgänger, there in that obscure movie he had never heard of. After some quick googling, Adam finds out the identity of this second-to-third-rate basically unknown actor. He learns that he has just made a few movies and played in very small parts, as an extra, essencially. The actor's name is Anthony Claire and the little information he finds in the internet makes it clear that they are like two drops of water, or next to it.

Adam also finds out that his double (played also by Gyllenhaal, obviously) lives in Toronto as well, this dreamlike Toronto as depicted in Enemy, and he decides that he should meet him. Eventually the two men will meet in a creepy, slightly terrifying, face to face encounter, that Adam cannot completely cope with. 

Except for some minor details (Anthony wears a wedding ring), the two appear to be identical. Also both happen to be related to physically similar blond girl friends: Mary (Mélanie Laurent) and Helen (Sarah Gadon), Anthony's wife, who is 6 months pregnant. Adam and Anthony might look identical in physical terms but their psychologies drastically differ. Adam, the history teacher, is dubious and hesitating; Anthony, on his part, is more proactive, even agressive.

There is an unequivocal Lynchean atmosphere, oneiric, weird, in the development of the story. We find spiders here and there in the course of the movie, as if the spider (and a spider's web) was a key concept to the understanding of Enemy. What is going on here? What is the deeper meaning of this strange movie we are seeing?

Spiders here and there

I remember some time ago talking to a friend who had been engaged for a few years, though not yet married to his fiancée. I asked him how the thing was going, and I recall him saying something like At first I felt sort of trapped. But now I would say I am fine. Well, trapped. And this has been pointed out as one possible key to the underlying meaning of Enemy. This feeling of being trapped in a relationship, which is not clear. As if one was a kind of insect in a spider's web, and even ready to be devoured by the spider. And who is the spider? Well, uh, the woman. And the spider's web is nothing but the commitment: this commitment so often demanded, which some find suffocating, and so hard to stick to at times.

Also there is this final shot in Enemy. Again involving a spider. The most terrifying final shot in all movies, as some have said. Don't know if the most terrifying one, but scary as fuck, all the same. Spiders.

Spiders. Are they the clue? Being trapped by the spider's web of a commited relationship. Or is this, as someone else has suggested, an Invasion of the body snatchers thing? Could Anthony Claire, Adam's doppelgänger, be truly a spider in a human disguise? Well, anyway, Enemy is rich enough to allow different interpretations, as dreams do. One thing is certain: here is a story of the Mulholland Drive sort: incomprehensible, complex, lysergic, scary. Wonderfully image-turning. Filled with enigmatic clues and symbolisms to taste, if you are into it (Is this chaos decipherable?) If not, you can at least enjoy a good lynchean oneiric ride, without caring much about the meaning. 

Nightcrawler (2014)

Of course, in Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014) we have another great performance by Jake Gyllenhaal, a most eclectic and arguably one of the finest actors today. But what I find most fascinating about his brilliant Louis Bloom creation is something that has already been noted by some viewers and critics: smartly psychopathic, Bloom is a close relative of two iconic Robert De Niro characters: Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver (1976) and Ruppert Pupkin from The King of Comedy (1982), both directed by Martin Scorsese. Louis Bloom is definitely a sort of mixture of Bickle and Pupkin, sharing psychological traits with these two other lovable sociopaths.

Like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, he also scans away the night scene with a cold, dispassionate eye, safely behind the wheel of his car. Only that Bloom's eye is even colder and more dispassionate, because Bloom, unlike Bickle, doesn't exactely feel dismayed or angry by what he sees in the New York streets in the small hours, nor does he play with the idea of perhaps cleaning the streets up in some sort of fascist way. Louis Bloom just wants to document them, to "print on tape", or digitally register, the pain he comes across in the streets, or rather which he actively seeks for (accidents, murders, whatever), and then deliver it to others who are eager to consumate it. He delivers it to the media and wants to be paid for it accordingly. That is it. He doesn't give a shit about what causes the tragedies and their pains, or what could be done about it. We have this intuition that he could even be happy to create the painful situations himself, if necessary, if that could better serve his purposes, so as to have more of them to register, and earn more money.  His eye is not a moral one, it appears purely dehumanized.

And along with his other kindred spirit Ruppert Pupkin (King of Comedy), Bloom also has illusions of grandeur. Like Pupkin, he is obsessed with climbing up the ladder of success, no matter what. He definitely wants to be someone, a big someone. He is the ultimate entrepreneur, and an unscrupulous type of it. He knows what he wants. His moral approach might be reprehensible, but at least no one could say his goals are not crystal-clear. Aside from the psychological similarities between Bloom and Pupkin, Nightcrawl also delivers us (like The King of Comedy did) a critical comment on the media culture of the day. And in the case of Nightcrawl, on the harshest variety of it. If it bleeds it leads takes media culture to a most cynical dimension, in which images are coldly and impeccably manipulated to suit one particular narrative or editorial line.

Bickle, Pupkin and now Gyllenhall's Bloom are three sociopaths sharing the same essential icy loner psychology. Nightcrawl could well be considered the Taxi Driver of today. (It even has its own You Talking to Me? scene, guess which one). We could note that in 2014 Nightcrawl Jake Gyllenhall was the same age (33) as Robert De Niro in 1976 Taxi Driver. Maybe that is just a biographical anecdote, but it could as well be a sign of Gyllenhall's coming iconic status. What is not anecdote for sure, is that the anapologetic strenght of Nightcrawl seems to equal that of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy. Gilroy's movie is a great one, a realistic knockout in a moral sense. A cynical document in the form of fiction of today's world, and through the eyes of a most cynical character.

George Michael (1963-2016)

Here's a cool acoustic version by George Michael of Wham!'s Everything She Wants (1984). With a live orquestra and a small crowd of some 300 people, he performed it along with tracks from his 1996 album Older and other works.

Recorded in London, in October 1996 (aired 1997), this was critically aclaimed as one of the best MTV Unplugged performances.